Tuesday, October 27, 2015

People are amazing! Out of the 7 billion people on the planet, most of the people, most of the time, are really being excellent to each other.

I saw this meme today, and it made me think of how thankful I am for engineers. Last year, my family was involved in an auto accident near our home. We walked away from that accident because of those excellent engineers at Ford Motor Company.

I am thankful for the first responders of the South Jordan police, fire, and paramedic teams. They were at the accident site in no time, checking on everyone involved.

I am thankful for my buddy Geoff who works at Unique Collision Repair in South Jordan. He was my first call at the accident site and he walked me through everything I needed to do to get the car taken care of in the short term. He made the tow calls and later handled everything with my insurance company. The day after the accident, he went over the damage with me and explained the marvels of modern engineering that kept my family safe inside the cab of our Freestyle.

I am thankful to my insurance company, Horace Mann, who took care of getting us a rental and were just great to work with.

A lot of wonderful people were involved that night with protecting and helping my family.

When you have been helped, when you have been rescued, when you have been medically treated, when you have been educated, when you have been mentored - those were people who did that. People who gave to you from their time and hard earned talents.

Sunday, October 18, 2015

There has been a lot said in the media, particularly the conservative media, about Christian persecution. If you listen to Fox News, or the various Republican presidential candidates, you would get the impression that Christians are under attack in America.

However, when you dig past the rhetoric, you often find that how they use the word persecution tends to differ from the definition most of us use.

For example, I was reading a Facebook post regarding Al Mohler's (president of the Southern Baptists) comments that Christians should not attend the weddings of their gay family and friends. A Christian blogger posted in the comments section that Christians would be insulted by being asked to attend in the first place. The following is part of our discussion.

I know a lot of the push back to this would be that David has an extreme view and that he does not represent most of Christendom. Honestly, I don't know what the numbers are like. I know Christians of all stripes on this topic.

But here is what I do know: There are Christian mayors who think like David. There are Christian governors who think like David. There are many Christians in Congress who think like David.

Nearly all of the the Republican presidential candidates think like David.

The religious powers in the Dark Ages thought like David and much of the pain and suffering in the Middle East is being caused by religious people who think like David.

We all need to fear religion that considers the existence of the "other" an insult and a slap in the face.